Safety & Compliance

FMCSA Drops Many Recent Emergency Trucking Rule Exemptions

After consulting with representatives of state governors The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has rescinded certain emergency exemptions to trucking regulations, but is keeping them for half a dozen states, following heating fuel shortages.

The exemptions were issued over the winter following declaration of an emergency orders issued by various governors or FMCSA and were later extended.

Those states were the orders are being rescinded are: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia, along with the District of Columbia.

FMCSA says the emergency declaration extensions will remain in effect until further notice, but no later than May 31 for: Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The reason, said the agency, is each of these state governors told it fuel supplies in their states have not yet returned to normal.

On March 21 President Obama signed the Home Heating Emergency Assistance Through Transportation Act of 2014, also know as the HHEATT Act, extending until May 31 all “covered emergency exemptions'' created between February 5 and March 21, providing regulatory relief to commercial motor vehicle operators directly supporting the delivery of propane and other home heating fuels.

FMCSA says it contacted the chief executives of all of these 36 states and D.C. to inquire whether critical shortages of propane and other home heating fuels still persist or whether the exemptions were no longer be needed, before making its decisions.